Remitting Pre-2024 Savings: The Por 162 Exemption Explained

Remitting Pre-2024 Savings: The Por 162 Exemption Explained

Money you earned outside Thailand before 1 January 2024 is still not taxable when you bring it into Thailand today, no matter what year you remit it. This carve-out comes from Por 162/2566, an order the Revenue Department issued on 20 November 2023, and it remains current law in mid-2026. The catch is that the exemption only survives an audit if you can prove the money is pre-2024: a bank statement showing your 31 December 2023 closing balance, plus a paper trail linking that balance to income earned before the cutoff. No proof, no exemption — the Revenue Department will simply assume the funds fall under the newer, stricter rule.

Quick answer

• Pre-2024 foreign income remitted to Thailand at any time = not assessable, under Por 162/2566 (issued 20 Nov 2023).
• Post-2024 foreign income remitted while you're a Thai tax resident (≥180 days/year) = assessable, under the companion order Por 161/2566, regardless of which year you remit it.
• Core proof document: a bank or brokerage statement showing your balance as of 31 December 2023, in the currency and account it sat in.
• Second proof layer: records showing that balance came from income earned before 2024 — pay stubs, dividend/interest statements, home-country tax returns, or a pension confirmation letter.
• Mixed accounts: if pre- and post-2024 money sits in the same account, expect to apply FIFO (first-in-first-out) logic and document it, since the Revenue Department has not published its own methodology for this.
• Burden of proof sits entirely with you, not the bank or the Revenue Department — keep the records before you remit, not after you're asked for them.

What Por 162 actually says

Two orders landed together in late 2023 and work as a pair. Por 161/2566 closed a long-standing loophole: foreign income was only taxable if remitted in the same calendar year it was earned, so parking money offshore for a year made it tax-free forever. Por 161 killed that trick for income earned from 2024 onward — remitting it in any later year now still triggers Thai tax if you're a resident.

Por 162/2566, issued three months later on 20 November 2023, drew the line that makes the first order bearable: the new remittance rule applies only to income earned on or after 1 January 2024. Anything earned before that date — salary, investment gains, rental income, savings already accumulated abroad — keeps the old, more generous treatment. You can remit it in 2026, 2030, or any year after, and it is simply not assessable income for Thai tax purposes. This isn't a workaround; it is the Revenue Department's own grandfathering clarification, and it's untouched by the 2025 relief-draft saga or the political freeze that followed the 8 February 2026 election. For where that newer proposed relief stands, see the foreign income tax status tracker and was the remittance tax repealed.

Only Thai tax residents need to think about any of this — you become one once you've spent 180 days or more in Thailand in a calendar year (see the 180-day residency rule). Non-residents are only taxed on Thai-source income, so the remittance rules don't touch them at all.

The documentation that actually holds up

The exemption is generous, but Thai practitioners agree on one point: if the Revenue Department challenges a remittance and you can't produce contemporaneous proof, it will treat the funds as post-2024 and assessable by default. That burden is yours alone, and far easier to assemble before you remit than after an audit letter arrives.

Source: Revenue Department Por 162/2566 as interpreted by Nishimura & Asahi, Mahanakorn Partners (MPG) and ExpatTaxThailand · verified July 2026 · ฿33/USD. Documentation standards are practitioner guidance, not a published statutory checklist — no official Revenue Department form exists for this proof.

Get the 31 December 2023 statement now if you haven't already — online statement history often only goes back a few years, and a written request for an older one can take weeks. A home-country tax return is the single strongest piece of evidence, since it's an independent, dated, third-party record. If any paperwork isn't in English or Thai, budget for a certified translation; there's no published standard for what "certified" means here, so ask a Thai tax accountant what your local Revenue Department office has accepted recently.

Mixed accounts: why FIFO matters

Almost nobody keeps a clean, single-purpose account that only ever held pre-2024 money. Most people have one savings or investment account that had a 2023 balance and kept receiving deposits, interest and dividends through 2024, 2025 and into 2026. When you remit from an account like that, which baht is "old" and which is "new"?

The Revenue Department hasn't issued a methodology for allocating remittances out of a commingled account. In its absence, tax advisors generally treat FIFO — first in, first out — as the reasonable approach: the earliest money in is treated as the first money out. If your account held $50,000 on 31 December 2023 and has taken in $20,000 since, your first $50,000 of remittances draw down the pre-2024 pool and stay exempt; only amounts beyond that pull from newer, assessable money.

This only works if you can show your math. Keep a running ledger: opening balance on 31 Dec 2023, every deposit since (dated, sourced), every remittance out, and a running total of what's left in the exempt pool. Update it every time you move money, not once a year from memory — a ledger that matches your bank statements is far more persuasive to an auditor than an after-the-fact estimate.

The cleanest fix going forward is to physically separate the money: keep the pre-2024 balance in an account you don't touch except to remit from it, and route all new income into a second account. That removes the FIFO calculation entirely, since there's nothing left to commingle.

Who this matters most for

Retirees and long-stay expats who sold a house, cashed out a pension lump sum, or simply had years of savings sitting in a home-country account before ever moving to Thailand are the biggest beneficiaries of Por 162. If you built up a nest egg abroad before 2024, that pool is potential exempt income — worth structuring remittances around rather than mixing it with new pension payments or investment income that keeps arriving. See do retirees pay Thai tax on pensions for how ongoing pension income is treated differently, and double tax treaties for US/UK/AU retirees for treaty relief on income that is assessable.

People who moved to Thailand more recently, or who only started earning meaningful foreign income in 2024 or after, get much less benefit here. Anyone filing a Thai return should also check Thai tax ID and filing requirements for foreigners, since claiming a Por 162 exemption on one remittance doesn't remove you from the filing conversation if you have other assessable income. If you're still building toward a long-stay visa, the DTV funds checker and cost-of-living calculator are useful next stops — visa financial thresholds and this tax exemption are governed by entirely different rules.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to file a Thai tax return if I only remit pre-2024 exempt savings?

Practitioner guidance suggests a remittance that is genuinely non-assessable doesn't by itself create a filing obligation. This is an interpretive position, not a statutory carve-out, so if you have any other assessable income get personalized advice — some advisors file defensively even when the math nets to zero.

What if I can't find my 31 December 2023 bank statement?

Contact your bank or brokerage and request a historical statement for that date. Most institutions can produce one even if it's not in your online archive, though it may take a few weeks and sometimes a fee. Start now rather than waiting for an audit.

Does Por 162 apply to pension lump sums or only to savings accounts?

It applies to any foreign-sourced income earned before 1 January 2024 — pension lump sums, investment gains, or ordinary savings. What matters is when the income was earned, not what form it's held in now, though you still need to document that origin date.

Is the Por 162 exemption affected by the frozen 2025 tax reform?

No. Por 162 is a separate, already-in-force order from November 2023, untouched by the 2025 "two-year exemption" relief draft that stalled after the February 2026 election. That proposed reform would have added new relief for post-2024 income; it has nothing to do with the pre-2024 grandfathering Por 162 already provides.

Can my Thai bank refuse a remittance because I claim it's pre-2024 exempt?

The bank isn't making the tax determination — it processes the transfer, and tax exposure is assessed by the Revenue Department if you're later audited. Banks do flag large or unusual transfers for anti-money-laundering checks under FET reporting rules, but that's a separate process from the tax question.

The bottom line

Por 162 is real, current, and unaffected by the political limbo around Thailand's broader tax reform — pre-2024 foreign savings stay exempt from Thai tax whenever you remit them. But the exemption lives or dies on paperwork you should be assembling now: a 31 December 2023 closing balance, source documents proving that money predates 2024, and a FIFO ledger if your accounts are mixed. Do that work before your next big remittance, not after a Revenue Department letter shows up, and this becomes one of the few genuinely simple wins in an otherwise unsettled area of Thai tax law.